Android first
Ok now iOS
even though iOS has a bunch of unique titles and a lot of variety, for all the big releases, and cross platform titles, droids actually have an incredible edge. It becomes crucial to have a droid to be in on the newest titles, before anyone else. Don't take this the wrong way, for most people, iOS has much more to offer in terms of casual titles, good gameplay, but for the -ahem- strange new world of pro mobile gaming, if you know exactly what you are doing and when you need to stop playing the titles once they release, droids are the way to go.
so how close was the assessment to your experiences ?
pls to add thoughts/ comments
- Betas : on the iOS, the game first gets released in the Canadian app store, for a week, where it is tested before it is released anywhere else. On droids, distribution is not segmented, and the developer can release beta versions whenever they want, and even release daily builds. Daily builds are simply not possible on the iOS. This allows the developers far more latitude during testing, and allows them to get feedback that is simply not possible in a polished final release of a game. Ofc, there are games on iOS that evolved over time based on feedback, but this took time, the whole process can be skipped right in the development stage itself.
- Cheaper games : the platform cut is competitively priced with apple, which means that many games are cheaper on the droids, as against the similar price on the istore. This is for one-off titles, and does not hold for titles with IAP.
- It's hacked : it's not that the industry plays fair with us. one trend that is ruining gameplay is IAP. eagles in angry birds, coins in star dunk and lane splitter, decals and cars in forever drive, stars in asphalt... all take real world money. basically playing the full game involves playing for insanely long amounts of time (one of the ways they hook you), and even then you have to shell out for some items. You can never really "buy out" all aspects of the game, you have to keep shelling out more and more to keep playing. It's an incredible rush to play these games with infinite digital currency. Not recommended on any titles, some ban your account and device for having an IAP cracker. If you sneak past tho, you get to pwn the leaderboards and its a ton of fun. Again, not that this is not possible on iOS but doing it with droids is much easier.
- Relatively uncensored content : the droid marketplace has some gems that would not survive apple's filters for various reasons. There are copycats on both stores, but a lot more on droids. A handful of droid titles are far more refined, expanded and better versions than the iOS titles they are copied from (eg Unicorn Dash vs Robot Unicorn Attack)
- Compatible with pc : ever since Play was available on chrome, some titles are playable on pc. Suddenly, a bunch of titles you could play on your mobile, are playable on the computer as well. This means if you are hooked on to one game, you can play it on a tab at office, at home, while traveling, and while your mobile is charging. You need separate versions for iOS titles on iPads and Mac Books most of the times, and then only a handful of these titles are available on droids and PC-via-chrome as well.
- Timely updates : a developer has a lot of control over when updates hit the market. In the iOS ecosystem, every single update has to go through apple's approval process. Now while both android and iOS games can be "patched" with delta updates (few games use this), only the droids have the luxury of receiving substantial build updates of existing apps without an approval process from the app store. This means that, say if a game wants to release some content based on a holiday, or a film release, then it can do so with much more control over the dates of this release, rather than wait for the randomly timed approval process on apple (the updates go live whenever approved lol).
- Larger screens : having the option of larger screens makes a diff on some titles, especially racing games (eg: asphalt), or games with lot of buttons, text and menus (eg: Dark Legends). the racing titles are brutal on the iPhones once you go there after playing the same titles on droids with larger screens.
Ok now iOS
- Game Center : it's like a multiplayer environment across games. You can trade items, compare progress and team up. It's as if all games plugged into GC on the iOS is one massive online multiplayer. Just fire up any game, and it usually has a GC component, so you can see what your friends are playing, and keep up with the latest games. This idea was so successful that there is even Open Feint, an alternative to GC. Then some studios have their own networks such as Plus+. Haven't come across this kind of a network of gamers for droids. Ok who has heard of scoreloop.
- More control : compare playing skyball on droids with dark nebula on an iOS, slight changes in your hand make sufficient changes to the device. this holds for motion, as well as touch. Some gesture heavy games such as project 83113 work well on only some droids. No problem on say a device like the arc, but most of these games wudnt even start up on the lower end droids. The difference is easily noticeable on a touch sensitive game : orbital, this seems to be something to do with the way the touch behaves. The signals sent to the device rarely ever point to a wrong spot in iOS, but they do very frequently on droids, especially slight jerks when you release your fingers from the screen.
- Less bugs and glitches : hardware / software to blame maybe, but at least you dont need to turn background processes off to play
- Screen is easier to look at : this is sure to seem like a small factor, but if you spend a long time touching a screen, the slight distance between the finger and the surface of the screen starts bugging you. The iPhone screens are closer cut, which means your eyes spend a little less time looking at that irritating gap between the surface and the screen.
- No phone calls : Unless you live in a black hole, or a Faraday cage, the only way to avoid a call interrupting your world record high score on ninjump or fruit ninja is to use an iPod.
even though iOS has a bunch of unique titles and a lot of variety, for all the big releases, and cross platform titles, droids actually have an incredible edge. It becomes crucial to have a droid to be in on the newest titles, before anyone else. Don't take this the wrong way, for most people, iOS has much more to offer in terms of casual titles, good gameplay, but for the -ahem- strange new world of pro mobile gaming, if you know exactly what you are doing and when you need to stop playing the titles once they release, droids are the way to go.
so how close was the assessment to your experiences ?
pls to add thoughts/ comments
